Need some grammar help from all you smart grammar people...

[ladymanson]

I need some grammar help and I made the mistake of posting this to Yahoo Answers first. God, I love some of the people over there...

Okay, I'm doing an initial edit of my novel (which I feel I should avoid since it's not even done, but find myself doing it anyway) and I am wondering if this is grammatically correct. The novel is in first person, so

Comments

[holypotatoes1]

Now I'm not a genius when it comes to grammar but the way you have the sentence before the one you're talking about it has a comma splice. You should be able to change that period to another comma and lowercase the "knowing" solving the problem of whether or not it's okay to start a sentence with it.

Oh and in the part "mind at ease for at least for a little while" you might want to get rid of one of the "for"s. ;)

[ladymanson]

Oh and in the part "mind at ease for at least for a little while" you might want to get rid of one of the "for"s. ;)
These are the things that happen when I copy and paste too much, lol.

As far as the commas, I'll have to change that. I go kind of crazy with commas on a first draft.

[holypotatoes1]

Haha, I used to go comma crazy as well and then I was always yelled at for having too many commas so I stopped using so many, only to be yelled at once again for not having enough. Sometimes you just can't win. Comma's are a pain in the ass, it's that simple.

[ladymanson]

I particularly like when I go through the writing a second time and go, "Why did I think it was a good idea to put commas THERE?"

[holypotatoes1]

Agreed. Sometimes the things you put in there make you go WTF was I thinking. Sort of like when you type a random word that apparently had popped into your head when you were writing and you go back and reread what you wrote and are just utterly confused. Like, why did I write "banana" when I meant "president"?! What the hell was I thinking?

I think the problem with comma's specifically though is that when we were kids we were taught to put them wherever there was a pause in the sentence, now we find out that there are actually RULES (I know crazy) for them which tend to make things more confusing. I'm all for putting them in whenever there is a pause though.